


Marichat May - Day 16: Flowers

by tournee_de_la_ladybug



Series: Marichat May 2017 [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Day 16, F/M, Flowers, Fluff, Marichat May, Marichat May Collab, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-16
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-11-01 16:11:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10925367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tournee_de_la_ladybug/pseuds/tournee_de_la_ladybug
Summary: Marinette and Chat Noir communicate through flowers.A florist knows more than she lets on.





	Marichat May - Day 16: Flowers

**Author's Note:**

> Please enjoy this submission for Marichat May! I'm not really sure if I'll get to another prompt this time around because I really want to get the next BMBH chapter up first. *shrugs*
> 
> Originally posted on my [tumblr](http://tournee-de-la-ladybug.tumblr.com/).

With a cry of surprise, Chat Noir slipped on the slanted roof he was on, sending him crashing down onto the shingles. He barely managed to catch himself before plummeting off the edge, and took a moment to collect himself after his near-fall. It wasn’t common for him to lose his focus like that, but without Ladybug, it was all-too-easy for him to grow lax on patrol.

She had left him a message earlier saying that she couldn’t make it for some reason or another, leaving him to wander through Paris by himself as the sleepy city settled beneath him.

He had tried to convince himself that she was telling the truth – that she truly was busy. But sometimes, on nights like this when he poignantly missed the warmth of his mother or the presence of his father – sometimes he couldn’t help but wonder if she was avoiding him.

It was ridiculous, and yet… and yet he couldn’t help it.

It was on nights like this that he risked his identity the most. Craving attention from someone, craving the fragile feeling of belonging somewhere – he would frequent the roofs of his civilian friends. He’d scan the city from the top of the Grand Paris, swing by the dark window of Nino’s room, and sometimes stare at the Césaire house, knees to his chin, watching Alya’s rambunctious sisters drive her up the wall as she tried to update the Ladyblog.

But on the nights when he felt the lowest, on the nights when the stars glittered coldly above him and the weight of his Miraculous was almost too much to bear, well, he found himself-

Here.

He crouched down on the roof across from the bakery, leaning his back against the chimney that jutted out. Chat plopped his head in his hands and watched as the glowing lights of the bakery dimmed for the night. He wouldn’t stay long. He never did. He just… he needed a second to pretend that he had more in his life. More love, more light – a family like the Dupain-Chengs.

Marinette was on the balcony, but she clearly hadn’t seen him, yet. He was tempted to call out to her, but he couldn’t seem to summon the energy. She finished watering the plants on the railings and shot them a satisfied little smirk before setting the watering can down and descending back into her room. He caught a flash of pale pink from the walls, and the door shut firmly behind her.

Chat should have left then. He should have gotten up and finished his rounds, and then settled in for another quiet night in his quiet house.

But this night? This night was taut, ready to burst with something new. This night had more in store for him. He could feel it.

His green eyes shifted to the rustic little can Marinette had been using. The tiniest hint of a smile appeared for but a brief second, and with a sudden surge of liveliness, he leapt off the roof onto the street level.

It didn’t take him very long to find a flower vendor, but as soon as he did – the poor girl manning it just about fainted. (He hadn’t meant to be scowling as he stalked toward her booth – he was just lost in thought).

“C-can I help you?” She asked, tucking her brown hair behind her ears.

He jerked back into the present, a flush growing across his cheeks. “Oh, I-I’m sorry.” He cast a lingering glance onto the roses sitting pretty in a black bucket. “You aren’t closed, are you?”

The girl had composed herself by then with a small smile. “Just about – but I think I can spare a moment for a superhero. What do you need?”

He tapped his fingers indecisively against the countertop, glancing once again at the roses. “I need something for… a friend.”

“Ladybug?”

His flush deepened. “Actually, no. Just a friend.”

The shopkeeper raised a brow. “So, does that mean Ladybug is more than a friend?”

His eyes widened and he stuttered, “No! No, oh my gosh, no! Please don’t repeat that. She’d murder me if she thought I was spreading something like that!”

The girl laughed as he turned redder under the street light. “Alright, so not Ladybug, but another… female friend?” Seeing the mortification sprawled on his face, she stopped her teasing. “Alright, well, how about a yellow rose? They symbolize friendship, and it’s a nice gesture.”

He gently tugged a flower from the bucket. “How much?”

She waved her hand. “No charge.”

Chat shook his head. “I can’t just take it.”

“Then, let’s make a deal. Come back someday and tell me how she liked it. That’s payment enough.” She held out a hand for him to shake and he took it gently.

“Deal.”

She watched him go with a knowing smile.

\---

The next night, Chat left his house earlier than was necessary in the hopes that he’d catch Marinette when she made to water her plants. He’d spent a fair portion of the night looking up flower symbolism in eager anticipation.

Moments after he perched beside the opposing chimney, Marinette stumbled out of her room, phone pressed to her ear.

“I know, Alya. I just – I can’t help it sometimes.”

Chat leaned forward ever-so-slightly, trying to catch what she was talking about.

“Chloe just gets to me.”

Chat blinked in sudden understanding. Marinette and Chloe had been caught in an argument when he had strolled into class that morning – but Nino had never filled him in.

“Yes, Alya. If I think I’m gonna get akumatized, you’ll be the first to know. As always.” She snapped the last comment with a little eyeroll and bade her friend a brief goodbye. She put the phone down, and with a set of deep breaths, turned to the watering can.

Chat leaned forward enough that he began to slip on the roofing. His claws scrabbled for purchase around the chimney, and by the time he was able to focus again on Marinette, she held the rose in her hand with a bewildered expression on her face. She looked around once, then swept her gaze past him again, frowning.

Marinette sniffed the flower tentatively, then shrugged and tucked it behind her ear. She watered her plants again and stepped back into her room.

Later that night, Chat Noir plucked a dandelion from the local park and stuck it along the top of the pink watering can.

\---

Adrien nervously tapped his pencil against his desk, stealing a glance at Marinette every so often.

He hadn’t gotten a chance to visit her since leaving the dandelion, and couldn’t help wondering what she was thinking. He’d meant it in a nice way – dandelions symbolized overcoming hardship. But then again, when it was Chloe, was there ever really an end to it?

Was Marientte even okay with the little gifts? Did she think there was some creep sneaking around on her balcony? Did she think anything of it at all?

He wanted to ask her. He- he was an idiot, and she must have hated him for it, and he… he was already halfway across the library and still walking toward her. The color drained from his cheeks. Of course he couldn’t talk to her about it. If she hadn’t made the connection to Chat Noir yet, what better hint? How else would Adrien Agreste have visited her balcony in the dead of night?

His traitorous legs kept moving in her direction. He was just within speaking distance when he caught what she was staring ardently at on her computer screen.

“Flower Symbolism and Plant Symbolism – How to Tell Someone How You Feel.”

\---

There was a daffodil (symbolizing uncertainty, he recalled) waiting in the flower pot for him that night. Silently, he plucked it out, its end dripping water onto his suit, and replaced it with a Lily of the Valley.

With only the slightest moment of hesitation, he unfolded the note he had written to her and gently tucked it in next to the white blossoms.

\---

“So,” the florist teased, eyes twinkling with mischief. “Does this mystery girl have a name?”

Chat shifted on his feet, crossing his arms. “…Yes.”

“But you aren’t going to tell me?” She prompted. “All this help I’m giving you, free of charge – may I remind you, and I can’t even know one measly little name?”

He frowned, indecision plucking at his heartstrings. “It isn’t that I don’t want to. I just don’t know where we stand right now. I don’t want to jeopardize her safety.”

“This is starting to sound like she’s more than a friend, little kitten.”

Chat didn’t meet her eyes. “I left her a note with the last one.”

“And?”

“She didn’t say anything back.”

“What, did you confess your love for her or something?”

He shook his head despondently. “No, I just… you said that they mean to return happiness, so I told her how I feel and how she makes me happy and how I want to be there for her if she needs it. You know, stuff like that.”

The florist dipped a piece of hydrangea in a hydrating solution and set it down on the table before her. “What was her reaction?’

He ran a hand through his hair, tugging back his cat ears. “That’s just the thing! She didn’t do anything! She just put an entire mint plant in her watering can. It took me forever to get it out. I almost had to take the can with me just so she wouldn’t catch me on her balcony.”

“In her watering can?” The shopkeep repeated, raising a brow.

He waved away her question. “It’s just what we do, ignore that.”

“Well,” the florist mumbled around a piece of wire she held in her mouth, patting the area around her for her floral tape. “Mint suggests suspicion. Maybe she’s on to your identity.”

He paled and she nearly spat out the wire with her bark of laughter.

“I’m kidding. I doubt that’s it, kitten.” She wrapped tape around the wire and stem and prompted him to hold out his wrist. He did so, and she compared the proportion of the pink hydrangea to his hand. “What if she just finally narrowed it down to being you?”

“Narrowed it down?” He repeated dumbly and retracted his arm as she let it go. It was the middle of the day, and though he had come beseeching her help while she had business to take care of, she had merely ushered him behind the booth so she could answer his love questions while she still got work done.

The florist snipped a piece of white ribbon and tugged it into a neat little bow. “Well, unless Ladybug is leaving flowers for this girl too – she probably assumed it was you. Who else would be pervy enough to leave flowers in a stranger’s watering can?”

He gasped in mock horror. “You think I’m pervy?”

“I think you’re overthinking things. Give me your wrist again.”

He held it out and she fixed the corsage around him with a satisfied smirk.

“Why did you need my help with this again?” he dragged the flowers a little closer to his chest, admiring them.

“You have thin wrists – like a girl’s. You make the perfect model.” His smile froze awkwardly on his face, but she was already focused on taking it off and offering it to the waiting customer, who had been unashamedly staring at Chat Noir for the duration of his purchase.

He sighed as the man departed and leaned his head against a skewed wicker basket that was overflowing with yellow spider mums and pale carnations.

“Ugh, this is making me sick. Why don’t you just give her something more concrete? Something really meaningful?”

“Like what?” He mumbled, pressing his face into the tabletop.

She slowly surveyed the rows of flowers behind her before settling on something soft and red. “This. If she doesn’t react to this, and she’s been looking them up like you said, she isn’t worth it.”

Chat slowly met her brown eyes and nodded, gently accepting the flower.

\---

That night, he had to wait a while for Marinette to disappear before venturing onto her balcony. She had spent several moments staring openly at the empty watering can, and he’d had to bite his lip to keep himself from calling out to her. She had gone through the motions again – checking the pot, watering her flowers, then checking the pot one last time, as though to be sure, before finally shaking her head and vanishing back into her room.

Mere seconds had passed, and already Chat Noir had bounded over to her balcony, swinging over her railing and landing on silent feet. He picked up the discarded can and tilted it to place the flower in.

Behind him, the latch to Mari’s trapdoor clicked and she tossed it wide.

He booked it.

Dropped the watering can, clutched the flower to his chest, and _sailed_ over the edge of the building.

He could hear Marinette’s gasp, even as he caught himself on his baton. When he finally looked up from the ground, her concerned face peeked over the banister. He saluted her and could have sworn that she rolled her eyes.

“Don’t you dare run from me, Kitty. I’ve got a bone to pick with you.” She crossed her arms and tapped her foot expectantly.

With a grin, he lifted himself up to the edge of the building and balanced precariously on the top of his baton, leaning against the balustrade. “You called, Princess?”

She smiled knowingly, then gestured at the daisy in his hand. “I knew there was a stray hanging around here. I just didn’t realize cats left gifts that weren’t dead mice.”

“Ah, well,” he scratched the back of his head. “I didn’t think you’d appreciate that.”

“No,” she confirmed. She caught a glimpse of the flower he was still cradling. It had miraculously remained intact. “So, gonna tell me what that one means?”

His face must have said enough because the smile slipped from her lips. Her eyebrows knit together and she leaned ever closer to him – eyes wide and searching, their breaths close enough to mingle.

Chat didn’t break eye contact with her. His voice was a little husky – but now, oh stars, now she was close enough that he could catch the scent of the bakery that clung to her and feel the warmth radiating from her.

“Beauty.” He swallowed, a flush spilling from under his mask. “Beauty that’s unknown to the holder.”

She started. Her eyes dropped to the hand holding out the flower, and ever-so-gently, she pulled it from his hands. Traces of warmth clung to his gloves as she pulled away, leaving a trailing cold in her absence.

She cupped it gently, smiling down at its bright red petals.

“Thank you,” she whispered – neither moving away nor toward him.

There was a pregnant pause. He couldn’t help but glance down at her lips once before jolting himself back to looking into her eyes.

“You’re welcome,” he murmured, then moved back before either of them did anything stupid. It seemed to break the spell, and she stumbled back too.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then?”

He reached behind him to grab his baton and extended it to the ground. “I will only accept the honor in the form of passive-aggressive flowers.”

“How about a nice thank-you flower?”

“I suppose that’s acceptable,” he conceded.

She laughed and smiled at him warmly before lightly pushing him away with the tips of her fingers. He acted as though the action had wounded him and fell backwards into the alley beneath them. She let out a little gasp as he disappeared into the shadows, but laughed at his fleeing form as he bounded away across the rooftops.

The next evening, a stem of Canterbury bells was left in the watering can for him.

\---

As the weeks passed, they left more flowers for each other - flowers depicting shyness, happiness, and somehow – more and more frequently – love.

But on the day that everything changed – Chat left nothing.

It took him three days to revisit the balcony – not because he didn’t want to – but because he was afraid of what he would see.

It had been an accident. 

One terrible accident that had revealed her identity to her classmates – including him. He hadn’t gotten a chance to talk about it since, and with the change in school dynamics, he wasn’t quite certain where they stood.

Chat landed on her balcony with wide, concerned eyes. He sought out the watering can and found it meticulously arranged with foxglove, Eglantine roses, and red dahlias. He bit his lip and held the flowers tight in the palm of his hand, waiting. He sat on the balustrade for hours, staring at the trapdoor and praying, just praying that she would open it and let him in – that she would open her heart and let him in.

But she didn’t, and in the early dawn hours, he slipped away.

\---

Foxglove for lies. Eglantine Roses for a wound that needed healing. Red dahlias for betrayal.

When the florist wandered out to her stand in the early hours of the morning, dragging out a new bucket of fresh greens and found Paris’s resident superhero slumped against her doorstep with those wilting flowers clenched in the palm of his hand, she took one look at him and ushered him in for the full story.

He was rather tight-lipped about the affair, but from what she could pick up – his mystery girl wasn’t upset with him, but rather an external issue. After consoling the troubled hero and pulling him into a gentle embrace, she sat him down one final time.

“What do you want to tell her?” She raised a finger to cut off his immediate response. “Truly, from the bottom of your heart. If this was it, if this was the last thing you could ever say to this girl, what would you have no regrets saying?”

Chat’s face was stony. He rolled the stem of foxglove between his hands, staring at the pink petals.

He replied and the florist nodded solemnly, turning to her work.

\---

Marinette hadn’t gone far for the past few days. Instead, she’d feigned illness and chose to stay in her room. She thankfully hadn’t been needed as Ladybug, and Tikki had given her some space to cope with her new reality.

They all knew.

Her friends, her classmates – all of them knew that she was Ladybug. And that scared her more than anything. Some of them had accepted it readily. Nino, for one, had been clearly shocked at first, but had quickly adapted. Alya was another story entirely and had been avoiding her. No texts, no calls, nothing.

And Adrien?

The befuddled expression on his face had said it all. He had been clearly disappointed to see her beneath the mask – if his gaping mouth and the emptiness in his eyes had been any indication. No. He couldn’t even reconcile the two images to himself. She was a fool for even thinking that he would ever love her.

The first night, she left her flowers out for Chat Noir, but even he had abandoned her. Weeks of turning up at her doorstep every night, and the one time she really needed him - he was gone.

The second night, she threw away her pictures of Adrien and deleted any evidence of her obsession from her phone. There was no reason to put up any pretense. Whatever they could have had, if it had ever been possible, was gone.

The third night, when Chat finally showed up to claim the half-wilted flowers, she couldn’t gather the energy to go out to him, even when he stumbled away in the dead hours of the morning.

On the fourth night, when she had finally steeled her resolve to go back to school, she wandered back into her little garden. Marinette was many things – afraid and uncertain being highly amongst them – but she refused to deprive her plants of any more water.

It was a quick trip. Duck out, water the plants, run back in. Simple.

Or at least, it should have been.

She had no idea when he arrived. It could have been hours, it could have been minutes. He blinked at her when she surfaced, as though he’d already resigned himself to waiting there for days. 

Marinette kept her eyes trained on the ground, shifting uncomfortably under his stare.

A rustle had her eyes crawling back up to look at him.

In his hands was a simple bouquet of small purple flowers and curving greens. He cleared his throat and held them out to her, pointing out the pieces as he spoke.

“Bells of Ireland stand for luck. Um.” He hesitated, but it didn’t matter because she could no longer hear him past the buzzing in her ears. The world grew hazy with tears and she let out a sob, crumpling in on herself.

Everything Marinette had, everything Marinette was… all of her secrets were out.

And there he was, her partner, standing on her balcony with a bouquet of flowers and concern – not hatred – in his glowing green eyes.

His arms slipped around her, holding her tight. The flowers crushed against her back.

His voice cracked. “Marinette. Ladybug. I…” he trailed off. “I know what you must be thinking. But I can’t – I won’t –”

Her arms wrapped weakly around him and her sobs grew louder. “Th-they all hate me. Everyone hates that stupid, clumsy Marinette is Ladybug.”

Chat let out a little sigh and drew back. He brushed his thumb against her cheek, wiping away the tears there. “I promise you, they don’t all hate you.”

“You didn’t see the way they looked at me.” Her lip trembled. She took deep, shaking breaths in.

His gaze softened. “I always have.” He linked his hand with hers. “As Ladybug and as Marinette. And I can promise you that,” With a flash of green, he dropped his transformation. She shut her eyes against the light, refusing to look at him. “There is no one in this world that I would rather fight beside. And there is no one in this world that I would rather have as my friend.” He raised her chin with a gentle hand. “Bellflowers stand for love. Unwavering love.” 

Slowly, Marinette opened her eyes to stare at the boy before her and the flowers cradled in his arms.

He smiled at her, and from some unbroken place deep within her, she found the courage to smile back.

\---

Days later, the florist smiled down at a pair of thank-you notes. One was a mint green with black highlights, and the other was decorated with a simple red and black print.

Knowingly, she slipped the notes into a pile of other documents and tucked them out of sight. She turned over her sign so that it read ‘open’ and grinned every time she caught a flash of red or black overhead.

Both Ladybug and Chat Noir had adamantly denied that the flowers they were buying were for each other, but it was clear from the way they playfully ran through the streets and were found wandering around with linked arms that each of their mystery individuals had indeed been each other.

She leaned forward on her elbows, watching them sail by. “You lucky little liars.”


End file.
